High On Fire

High on Fire emerged in 1998 as one of the most punishing and physically commanding power trios to follow in Motörhead’s wake, driving heavy music forward through an unrelenting fusion of doom and stoner metal. Frontman Matt Pike, already a member of the influential Sleep, launched the group after Sleep’s dissolution alongside bassist George Rice and drummer Des Kensel. While Sleep had cultivated renown through impossibly sluggish riffs and abundant cannabis use, High on Fire’s debut The Art of Self Defense presented a markedly more aggressive, fantasy-infused approach that earned strong critical notice yet faltered commercially when label Man’s Ruin collapsed.

Signing with Relapse Records, the grindcore powerhouse, the band delivered its devastating second album Surrounded by Thieves in 2002, finally realizing the promise that extensive touring and a growing audience had foreshadowed. Their third release, early-2005’s acclaimed Blessed Black Wings, introduced bassist Joe Preston, formerly of Thrones and Melvins, and marked the moment High on Fire crossed from underground status into broader recognition. Preston soon departed; Jeff Matz took over for 2007’s Death Is This Communion, an album that topped numerous year-end critic lists.

The 2010 fifth studio effort Snakes for the Divine, issued on Koch, sustained that momentum, as did 2012’s De Vermis Mysteriis, produced by Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou. The following year the band issued twin live documents, Spitting Fire Live, Vol. 1 and Spitting Fire Live, Vol. 2, documenting two ferocious New York City performances. Returning to the studio with Ballou, High on Fire unveiled its seventh album Luminiferous in 2015, showcasing its most elemental, pared-down sound.

During 2018 Pike rejoined Sleep for The Sciences, the trio’s first new material since 1999, while High on Fire issued its eighth studio album Electric Messiah that October. The record paid homage to Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister and captured the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2019. Later that summer Des Kensel exited, replaced on drums by ex-Melvins percussionist Coady Willis, whose first studio appearance with the group came on the Motörhead cover “Iron Fist” for the 2022 tribute compilation Löve Me Förever. Two years afterward High on Fire released its ninth album Cometh the Storm, anchored by the punchy, melancholic single “Burning Down.”